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“I figured it would.” Her tone was bleak. Bleak enough that he looked over at her with the first semblance of sympathy that she’d seen from him all night.
“Have you read my books?”
“Yes.”
“They’ve been optioned for a TV series, you know.” The ansuz pendant clattered against the wooden table as he leaned closer, confidingly, which slid his hand all the way down to the top of her thigh. “I’m currently working on the third.”
“Congratulations,” she said numbly. “What does that have to do with me?”
“You do understand,” he said, very softly, “that you were the inspiration behind those books, don’t you, Donni?” When she didn’t, couldn’t move, he said, “They say life imitates art, but in your case, that’s simply not true. Art—my art—is just a poor substitute for what I really want: you.”
“No.” The word exploded out of her and she jerked her hips away from him. Face flushed, she quickly looked around, hoping no one was near enough to hear the horrible things coming out of this man’s mouth.
He didn’t reach for her again. Instead, he let his hand fall harmlessly to the side, one of those humorless little smirks adorning his lips as the waitress came by with their dishes. “And here I thought you were finally ready to beg for my forgiveness.”
“I thought you wanted to talk like civilized, rational people.”
“I lied,” he said. “What I actually want is you.”
“No,” she said again, in a harder voice. “Stop saying that.”
“But it’s true. I do want you. And you want my help, don’t you?” He picked up his fork with the same hand he’d touched her with. “I bet you could pull off a stellar performance in my bed. You are an actress, after all. I pay people to let me watch—there are some very liberal clubs in Portland—but it’s not the same as real flesh and blood.”
Donni choked on her lettuce at the wordblood. “This is obscene, Rafe.”
“Oh yes.” His smile was wolfish. “It will be.”
“You came all the way down here looking for sex.” She kept her voice low and outraged, channeling a moral indignity she didn’t really feel. Mostly, she wanted him to understand how utterly sick this was. To stop looking at her as if he were a wolf that wanted to devour her in slow, lingering bites. “You want me to be your whore?”
“I thought were being civilized now,” he mocked.
“Fuck civility,” she said. “You’ve spent this whole dinner taunting me and lording my situation over my head. I’m sick of it. You want to fuck me? Tell me your terms or I’ll leave.”
“All right. Let me spell it out for you then, my sweet raven. You asked me for help. Financial, legal—I don’t care. I just care that you want it. And in return for what you want, I want you to be my muse.” He made a crude gesture. “Call it fucking, call it inspiration; that’s what I want from you. And if you give it to me, I’ll clean up the mess my asshole father left you in, and set you up in a pretty house with flowerboxes.”
She stared at him. It was honestly terrifying to see how ruthless and cold he’d become. She could still see glimpses of that child he’d been, but the Rafe she’d known would never talk to her like this.
Her heart thudded as she watched him toy with one of the flowers, fingering an orange lily petal with a gentleness he didn’t seem capable of.Flowerboxes, she thought, bewildered by that oddly specific detail. “Why pay for it at all?” she choked out. “Why not—I don’t know, use your imagination? Or find a girlfriend?”
“That’s the problem, Donni.” He looked at her somberly. “I’m still a virgin.”
SLEEPOVER FIENDS
(Directed by Johnathan Steel; starring Marielle Rios, Lisa Hoskins, and Diana Black; 1996)
Sleepover Fiendsis like aSlumber Party Massacredumbed down for the kiddies, or aCarriefor people who were actually invited to prom. After popular girls Amy, Tina, and Jessica (Rios, Hoskins, and Black) get involved in an ugly ponytail-pulling catfight over the high school heartthrob, Todd (played by Norman Vaskell), their friendship devolves into a yawn-worthy seventy minutes’ worth of jump scares and cheap thrills.
The only good scare in the movie is when the school loner (credited as “Girl with Braces” and played by Adonica Blake) is found slayed in the bushes outside Tina’s house, with her engraved locket tangled in the bushes. It turns out what worked forThe Craftdoesn’t quite work when you take out the magic and the chaotic acting of Fairuza Balk.
Movie score: D+
-Reed Burk (Movie Critic Depo, 1996)
Chapter Three
Strange Universe
A virgin.
